Dariel: A Romance of Surrey
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"Oh George! And you think you are a business man!" Grace smiled gloriously through her tears, possibly through her triumph over me, probably through the joy of my assurance. "Can anybody do two things at once? Could my Jack attend to ups and downs, keep his whole mind intent on Argentinas, contangoes, fundangoes, holdovers, and holdunders, and even unspeakable Turks with fifty wives, when the whole of his pure heart was down here? Why he only went up about once a-week, if he could get me to go out nutting with him."
"Alas, I see. Neglected business. Left understrappers, and dashing young clerks, and trusty old codgers with pens behind their ears to stick to the stools, while he made sweet hay. But there must be something more than that."
"You turn everything into vulgarity, George. And you are capable of laughing at the most sacred things. But there was more than that, and a great deal more than that. You may have heard him speak in his grand confiding manner of a man named Franks, who has been with him many years. He has promoted him from place to place, and trusted him with almost everything; and I do believe that Franks had no intention of doing anything crooked. And he spoke in the most enthusiastic terms of me, though of course they never mention such a subject in the office. And when Black Friday came, as you know it did, through some very stupid error of the Government, Jack only laughed at first, except for the sake of some dear friends of his, who were hit rather hard; it appeared so ridiculous to suppose that a firm like his could be affected. But there proved to be something, I cannot quite understand it, although I keep my books so clearly that I know every farthing owing to me, something, some involvement, some terrible affair, which will force him to give up the Hall, and the shooting, and the pedigree Butterfly cows, and even me."
"Don't let him do it. Don't hear of it for a moment. You will never get such another fellow;" I exclaimed, as she turned away to wipe her glistening cheeks. "He'll come round as right as a roach in the end. You didn't let him off on that tack, I hope?"
"As for letting him off, dear George, is he a trout that I should treat him so? He is not like a slippery fish for a moment, but a deep-hearted, true-hearted, wonderful man. Why his conversation is as different from yours – but I will not depreciate you, unless you go against me. Only I should like to know how I can help myself. When a gentleman says – 'I am truly sorry, but I can't have any more to do with you' – oh dear, oh dear, what can any lady do?"
"Lay hold of his coat, and say, 'None of that nonsense! I am the best judge of that question, and I have settled it the other way; unless you put up the bans within a month, you must favor me with the address of your Solicitors.'"
"Don't laugh at me. I have never laughed at you. I did tell him over and over again that the money could never make any difference to me, and indeed that I was very glad, except for his sake, because then nobody could ever say – but he talked of the duty of a man, and so forth, and the crime of allowing me to sacrifice myself, and a Cranleigh the wife of a bankrupt, and I don't know what else, for I broke down then, and he was obliged – "
"Of course he was – any amount of physical sustentation, as the reporters call it. But leave it to me, my dear. Where is he now? Too late for him to go back to London, I should think. But I wonder he didn't come to see me."
"He did. But you were not to be found. Oh George, I am thinking of every one of us. What shall we do? The Hall will be thrown upon our hands again, at a time of year when you would as soon live in a hearse. And Harold has made another of his great hits, which always cost a hundred pounds, and never produce a penny. How often I wish that I were like old Sally, without any pedigree Butterfly blood, and allowed to go and rout my husband up, just as Mrs. Slemmick is!"
"She routed him out from the root-house, last week," said I, being glad of any frivolous turn that might bring the dry colours into the rainbow; "she believed that he was gone for ever, without leaving his wages in his Sunday waistcoat pocket, and Snowdrop Violet Hyacinth just wheezing into the whooping-cough. But no; she underrated the nobility of man. He had tucked up his legs on a big flower-pot with a pipe in his mouth; and his heart was so full that he was going without breakfast. Are women alone to be considered faithful?"
"You mean that I am worse than Mrs. Slemmick." Girls never take the moral of the proverb aright. "Very well, I daresay I am. But I will never tuck my feet upon a flower-pot, and wait to be coaxed home, when the tea is getting cold. There is something very large in the character of Slemmick, and he shows it by his confidence in feminine affection. At the same time, it does appear a little small of you, to quote Mother Slemmick against me. She is married, and cannot help herself."
"Hear, hear!" I cried, leaving her to put the point to it; which she did with a blush, and a very cheerful smile. Then she gave me a kiss, to make up for little words; and I set out to see what I could do for her.
I found the poor Stockbroker looking stock-broken, and sitting on a hard chair, with his long legs crossed.
"Off for the Mediterranean?" I asked; and he said – "Bay of Biscay, or Bay of Fundy. Going to the bottom anyhow."
"Rot!" I replied, with less elegance than terseness. "Don't try to make me think that you would ever throw the sponge up. I know you a bit better than that, Jackson Stoneman."
"Would you like me to be a thief, George Cranleigh? If I choose to be a thief, I can slip out very lightly. But if I prefer to be an honest man, there is very small chance of my doing it."
He told me in a few words what his position was, owing to a panic which had ended in a crash, through the roguery of a few, and the folly of the many; and how his own firm had become involved in thoroughly unsound transactions, mainly through his own inattention and his confidence in a very clever fellow, who had cut things a little too fine at last, as very clever fellows nearly always do.
"We must lose a quarter of a million," he said, "even if we pull through at all, which is more than doubtful. All depends upon to-morrow. But it is not for myself that I care, George. It is for your darling sister – the best, and the bravest, and the most unselfish girl – why she wanted to stick to me through everything! She behaved as if it could make no difference between us."
"I should hope so indeed. I would disown her if she did otherwise. Did you think that she was going to have you for your money, Jackson?"
"I am not quite so bad as that, you may be sure. Still you must excuse a modest fellow for thinking his money the best part of him." Here I was glad to see one of his old dry smiles. "But the point of it is this, as you know well enough without my telling – I can have nothing more to say to Grace, who was worth all my cash, and my credit, and ambitions, and everything except my conscience to me."
"That is all very fine, and very lofty in its way," I answered with a superior smile, which refreshed him, as it was meant to do; "and among City people it may hold good, or the big world of the Clubland. But no sound Englishman takes it so. You don't suppose that my father approved of your going in for our Grace, because you then were a wealthy man, I should hope." I spoke with strong confidence; but perhaps the strength of it was chiefly in my voice.
"God forbid!" he replied with horror; while I tried not to doubt that God had forbidden. "No, I am well aware that Sir Harold disliked it from the first, and Lady Cranleigh even more. It was nothing but the goodness of dear Grace. And that makes it such a frightful thing for me. Why, that Angel was ready to stick to me, like – like a brick, if I only would allow it. A man who knows the world would never believe it for a moment."
"Then he must know a very bad world, and be a worthy member of it. What do you suppose I would have done to my sister, if she had been mean enough to shy off, because of your misfortune?"
"How can I tell, George? You are one of the most pig-headed fellows going. But you could not have been angry with her, for not being quite as stubborn as you are."
"Jackson, this is what I would have done. I would have taken the mane-scissors that hang above my mantel, and shorn off her great crop of hair to her ears. No gold for her there, if her heart were all pinchbeck."
Stoneman looked at me with outraged feelings. "Not even a brother could do that," he said, "brutal as brothers by nature seem to be. But without any humbug, George, do you really mean that you wish it to go on?"
"If I did not, I should be a wretched snob. It was not for money that you wanted Grace; and you insult her by fancying that she wanted you for yours."
"All this is very pleasant doctrine, and an edifying parable for little boys and girls;" the Stockbroker had a peculiar trick of showing his keen eyes as if in a gable, when his mind was puzzled or excited; "but it would not hold water, George, either in a court of honour, or a council of wisdom. Grace is entitled, both by birth and beauty, and I am sure that I might say by intellect as well, to a position which high rank alone, or wealth on her husband's part, can secure. High rank I cannot give her. Wealth I could have given. But the prospect of that has vanished, and with it vanishes all my hope of her. Oh that she had only thrown me over! I could have got over it then. But not now."
"Now look here," I said, as a Briton always calls attention to the knock-down blow he is delivering; "all that would be worth listening to, if it had anything to do with the matter. But, as it happens, my sister Grace doesn't care a flip about position, any more than I do, or you, or anybody else with a ha'porth of common-sense. We value the opinion of good people; and we like money for the comfort of others, as well as ourselves. But as for that mysterious affair you call 'position' – the more you poke your head up, the harder cracks you get on it. Grace will be contented with whatever pleases you. That holds you together, and you never slip away. People who have only got a lawn enjoy it a thousand times as much as a lord enjoys his park. And a man who loves his wife does not want to lose her among a thousand men and women he has never heard of, all pushing about to please themselves, and sneering at them both, by way of gratitude."
"You will make a fine domestic character, George, if you only act up to your theories. I shall never forget your true friendship and noble behaviour in this matter. I shall take my own course, however, as I always do. I know what is right: and you may talk for ever. There is only one voice that could move me, and that one shall have no chance of doing it (even if desired) for her own sweet sake. But everything will depend upon to-morrow; if things are as bad then as they have been to-day, there will be no escape for me. Grace shall never be a bankrupt's wife. If her sense of honour urges it, mine forbids. And it is not only honour, but common-sense, my friend. Your family has fallen in the world too much already. It shall not be dragged lower by any connection with a defaulting Stockbroker."
His face showed no sign of emotion now; and I owned to myself that from his point of view no other course was possible for a man of honour. Whether his point of view was right or wrong, is quite a different question; but in spite of all my reasoning, I have very little doubt that I should have done as he did.
CHAPTER XXXIX
FRANGI, NON FLECTI
"Jack is getting on like a house on fire," Signor Nicolo wrote in an envelope enclosing a rather grimy letter, which I received on the following morning; "he has not had a classical education, and so you can always make out what he means. Specimens to hand confirm his opinion. Perhaps I shall go out in the spring. Could not stand the cold there now. Come and see me whenever you think fit."
When this was put into my hand, I was ready to start for London, having promised to meet Stoneman outside the Exchange, at one o'clock. This had been my own proposal, for one can never be certain how a man may take great ups and downs of fortune; and although I had not much apprehension as to Stoneman's fortitude, it seemed to me that a good friend should be at hand and do his best for him. So I read the letter of young Jack Nickols, on my way to London-Bridge, and found it very straightforward and simple; and who cares for spelling after that? The rising generation gets on very well without it, and a thousand school-boards do their utmost to destroy its memory.
"Never did see a place so mountanious," – this young fellow said, where I first began to read, for the Signor had kept the first page in his pocket, or leather bag, or steel safe, so far as I could tell – "you never get up to the jag of one knife-grinder, before you have got to fetch your wind, and grind your bones for another. The Alps is nothing to it; they goes up gradual, and is ever so much smaller to my mind. And you don't get big chaps here to shove you up and keep you straight. These fellows cackle at you with a horrid voice, and they squat in a ring and stare at you, if you want to go up any clumsy sort of peak, and they tell one another that all Englishmen are mad. But they are as sharp about the rhino as Petticoat Lane crossed with a New Cut costermonger; and you can't bring them to book, as you can a thief at home. You have to do it all through a chap who knows their lingo; and you can't make out what he is saying to them, and you can't be sure, without your revolver ready that they won't stick their skewers, which they call jingles, into your spine, without letting you look round. I had a poor time of it at first; but they seem to be getting now to make me out.
"When you come to know them, you might find worse fellows; for I cannot call them treacherous exackly. They would skin you to your spare-rib, if you let them have the chance; but they won't stick a knife into you, until you aggravate them. I am getting rather thick with some of them, by making out a little of their crack-jaw words, though there seems to be no end of them. But talk about jaws, I need not tell you, as you have seen too much of them. There was a man in Yorkshire, about fifty years ago, who could get through a lamb, and then three quarters of her mother. But one of these fellows would eat the whole sheep first, and then take her little ones for desert. But you must remember that their sheep weigh less than ours, and I like to see a man make a hearty dinner. But it is hard lines to pay him for the sheep; and then let him come to dine with you, as he must do, so that you never get a taste of it.
"However I am not complaining. The country must be beautiful, when the snow lets a fellow look at it, and you think the more about it, because it is out of sight. Tell Rosa that the girls are not a patch upon her, and she would laugh to see how they put their hair up. The men are not refined enough to think much of the women; but make them wear swabs upon their faces, and the insects are tremenjious in the summer-time. We have got more than we can do now to keep any road clear to get at the pocket where the stones are, just a soft place between two tremenjious rocks; down comes the snow again, and you could scarcely find it out, unless you leave a black tar-pole sticking up, and then you must fix it wonderfully firm, or you won't find it in the morning, for the wind does blow, I can tell you. We shall have to knock off for three months, I am afraid, and where am I to go to all the time? The Russians are not half bad fellows, only some of them too pious when you come to know them. Only you may be glad of that sometimes, because when they go to say their prayers, you get the best place by the fire. I don't care for quite so much tea myself, and I have not tasted a good bit of tobacco for a month. But everybody says that when some great man, who has been living for several years in England, and I do believe I have heard you speak of him, when he comes back they say he will change everything, all the thieves of the mountains will begin to say their prayers, and nobody will stick his best friend for nothing. If this can be managed, it will be a true excelsior.
"But you remember what the people said, the year we went to Yarmouth; and it is out of the question for me to say what I would give to be there now. They said, and you could not deny it when you wanted a bloater before they came in – 'Sir, we lay ourselves out to oblige all the gents that come from London, but we cannot make a red herring swim.' I could not see exactly how they meant it, but it is just the same thing in the Caucasus.
"For a long time I could not see my way to be sure of not being struck at any moment. But I got over that idea, as we must, if we mean to get on anywhere. I will not say that my life is sacred now, as people express it in London; but ever since the popular opinion began to identify me with the Devil, through their ignorance of English manners, I have had a much better time of it. Tell Rosa, that in spite of uncommonly rough victuals, I weigh seven pounds more than I could pull, when she came to see me off at Wood-Green station. Nobody ever weighs anybody here, for after all they are not cannibals; though I told her so, to make her kiss me. But the steelyard I brought goes to half an ounce, and has saved me a lot of money. And tell her, if you think that it won't be too encroaching, under the peculiar circumstances, that I am not quite turned into the Devil yet, though she might say so if she could see me; and even if the climate had done it, an Angel like her need not be afraid of him. Hoping to come home with a sackful of emeralds, believe me, dear Uncle James, your most affectionate nephew, John Nickols."
At the bottom of this very vague and disjointed, but as it proved afterwards too true description, Signor Nicolo had written in pencil: "Rosa is my eldest daughter; but I shall have to put a stop to it."
"My noble countrymen!" as Sûr Imar used to call them, – it would take a long time to fetch them up to that mark, according to this English boy's account, and the enthusiastic chief could not begin too soon. It appeared to me that as many generations as he could trace from Karthlos would scarcely be enough to restore them to the level of antediluvian "culture." No wonder that he was in a hurry to begin; and if I am doomed to wait for the completion of his task, erit altera quæ vehat Argo, there will be another ark on the top of Ararat. And sure enough, here is another Babel to begin with!
For in the absorption of the thoughts above recounted, I found myself caught in the whirl and crush and uproar of a crowd as wild as any savage land could show. A crowd not of paupers but well-dressed people roaring and raging and besieging the portals of the Stock Exchange. Battered hats, and coats in tatters, fists thrown up, but unable through crunched elbow to come down again, faces black with choking wrath, wherever the brown mud peeled from them, grinding teeth and cursing lips, and chests that groaned with the digs they took without any chance of returning them – I thought of Lord Melladew's father and the bullock compressed into his clover-hay. Only let me keep outside the pack of the central squeeze if possible; for once in there, no strength of man could get me out or let me out. So I put up my knee, which was a dangerous thing to do, for if I lost my feet good-bye to me; when a gentleman, with whom it would have been a joy to dine – so comely, and well-liking, and well-to-do was he – being unable to get at me with his fists, let out at me with language I had never heard the like of. I attempted no retort, for he had already got the worst of it, and without any knowledge how it came to pass, except that there must be more luck than wit in shoving, here I was with my clothes still pretty sound, outside the drum of squashed figs and squealing pigs.
But another poor fellow was not so lucky. "Let him go, slide him on, he'll be dead in half a minute. Serve him right. No, no. How'd you like it? Don't tread on him, more than you can help." It was a solid man upon the ground, but likely to be hollow, before ever he could be an upright man. I had got a short knob-stick in my hand (which I always carried, since my faith in human nature had waned through that dastardly bullet) and in the most blundering and selfish manner I set the knob against my breast and the stub-end foremost, and charged into the lump of figures across me. Considerable yielding, and heads running into heads, and yellow waistcoats sloping like sheaves of wheat in shock, and big boots toeing up at me, and a hail of blows in flank – it is impossible to say how I got on. But there must have been a hollow place somewhere in the mass, for they fought into a lane, and allowed me to lay hold of a pair of yellow shoes, or at least they had been yellow, and tow out the prostrate body on its back, and feel it for the signs of life or death. "Ain't dead yet," said a hoarse and husky voice; "never fainted in my life, and don't mean to do it now."
I admired the pluck of this poor fellow; for indeed he was in a frightful mess, and another half-minute must have silenced him forever. With the help of a bystander, who only cost a shilling, I was able to get my trodden friend across the street, and into a double doorway, where a score of people came and stared at him. "Well, if he ain't a tough 'un. Cut the poor bloke's collar. Stand him on his pins, and blow to him. Give him a drop of brandy." Advice poured in on every side, more freely than assistance.
"Don't you know who I am, you fools?" The injured man sat up with the aid of one hand on the stones, and gazed defiantly. "All over the world I've been, but never saw such cursed idiots. Captain Strogue, sir, of the British Pioneers."
He glanced at me with hazy eyes, which told of many strong waters, and would tell of many more, if Heaven permitted; and then he tried to bow, but a pang in his chest took the grace from that salutation. "All right! Down the alley, three doors to the left."
He shoved away all who pressed forward to lift him, but allowed me to help him with his knees still hanging, to the place he had indicated. And sure enough everybody knew him there.
"The Captain, the Captain, the bold British Captain! He have been in the wars, and no mistake!" Out came the landlady and the barmaid, with tears in their eyes – for he had promised to marry both – and an ancient potboy with all his wits about him brought a rummer and a teaspoon, and stirred up something hot. "That's the physic, ma'am," he said; and the lady smiled and offered it, and met with no refusal.
In a word, Captain Strogue was in the right place now, and after helping to bestow him snugly upon a horse-hair sofa in a small back room, I was at the point of leaving, when he put up one hand and stopped me.
"Owe you my life," he said; "not worth much now, but has done a deal of service to civilization. Near St. Paul's, ain't we? That's where they'll put me. Know your face very well, but can't remember."
He seemed to be dropping off into a doze, having finished his strong potation; but I told him my name and where I had met him, for I was eager to be off to keep my time with Stoneman.
"Don't be in a hurry, sir; you have helped me, and I can help you. Strogue pays his debts. Somebody else will find that out." His eyes shone fiercely, and he pressed his knuckles to his side. "Widow Lazenby knows what I am – don't you, ducky?"
"Oh, Captain! And at such a crisis!" the landlady murmured, after looking round to be certain where the barmaid was. "But, sir, he have described himself. Wonders he have done, without wondering at himself."
It is a righteous thing that men of such achievements should have their reward, where it is sweetest. Fame they may never get, for that is all a fluke; gold they scarcely ever gain, because they are no grubbers; love they cannot stop to grasp, and see but savage frames of it; rank they laugh at, having found it the chief delight of black boys; but to get his grog for glory, and his victuals for victory, is the utmost any English pioneer can hope of England.
"Cranleigh, you can go," said Strogue, for his manners were not perfect; "you are involved in this little shindy, and you want to know all about it. These thieves shut shop at one o'clock on a Saturday, some one told me. But if you will come back by two, I shall have set this rib by then, and have rump-steak and oysters. Join me, without any ceremony. I owe you a debt, and you shall have it."